Cross

JOHN A. MCGUCKIN

Orthodox theology approaches the cross of Christ most characteristically as a trophy of divine glory. It is the cipher above all others that sums up and encapsulates the love and mercy of the Lord for his adopted race. It is the “sign of salvation,” the icon of hope. In many Orthodox painted crosses the title bar does not read “Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews” (INRI in Latin, INBI in Greek, IHЦI in Slavonic), but is made to read “The Lord of Glory,” and often on Orthodox devotional crosses one reads marked there the generic superscription Philanthropos Theos: “The God Who Loves Mankind.”

At first, early Christian theology demonstrated mainly a horrified sense of awe that the powers of wickedness could treat the Lord in such a violent way (Acts 2.22–35). But the tone was decidedly that God’s glorification of his servant Jesus far outweighed the dishonor that the dark spir­itual powers tried to inflict. The Apostle Peter, in his speech to the people of Jerusa­lem, sums it up in the words: “God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2.36). There is a regular contrasted pairing of the ideas of humiliation (in the cross) and exalted glorification of Jesus by God (because of the faithfulness to the point of crucifixion) such as can be seen in the ancient hymn which the Apostle Paul quotes (Phil. 2.6–11), as well as in the schemes of Ascent (Anabasis) and Descent (Katabasis) that structure St. John’s theology of crucifixion and glorification in his profound gospel (cf. Jn. 3.13–15). St. Paul took a decisive step when he made the cross not merely a scandal to be explained away but a mystery of faith and God’s love that ought to be celebrated as pivotal (Gal. 6.14). The cross in Christian use was already, and rapidly, shifting away from a thing of shame to being the great sign of the new covenant of reconciliation (Eph. 2.16; Col. 1.20; Heb. 12.2). In the early apologists and apostolic fathers the cross is rarely mentioned (though see Ignatius of Antioch, Letters to the Ephesians 9.1; 18.1; To the Trallians 11.2; To the Philadelphians 8.2). But popular devotion to it as a confident symbol of Christian victory over the powers of this world was steadily growing, as can be seen in the appearance in art and inscrip­tion from the 2nd century onwards of the cross-shaped monogram Fos – Zoe (“Light and Life in the Cross”: one must imagine the words written at right angles to one another, Fos down vertically, Zoe horizon­tally, making a cross, with the middle letter of both being shared in common).

The cross is depicted in later Orthodox iconography in distinctive ways. The usual iconic (painted) cross of the Lord shows the Savior in the moment of death and in pro­found serenity. There is nothing in the Orthodox tradition that presents the vivid torments of the crucifixion such as can be seen in post-Quattrocentro art of the West.

This is deliberately done, for doctrinal reasons, to present the cross to the faithful as the “Victory” over sin and death. More­over, the Lord’s corpus is drawn in a highly sinuous way in many of the representations, so as to evoke the Johannine phrase: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wil­derness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (Jn. 3.14). The iconic form of the ser­pent on a beam of wood, of course, is a profound resonance between Mosaic tra­ditions of God’s salvation of his people in the wilderness (see Num. 21.9) when any­one who looked upon this icon “lived,” and Hellenistic understandings of the healing power of deity (for Hellenes, the motif was the cipher of Aesculapios, god of healing, and even today is a widely recognized sign of the medical profession). Christ crucified is thus presented by the Evangelist John as the healing and life-giving antidote to sin for all the world. Those who look upon the victory of the cross, see the trophy (trophaion) of the Life-Giver. In Byzantine processional crosses the corpus was fre­quently omitted, and floral motifs abounded. This may have been partly influenced by Iconoclastic themes (while the icons were destroyed, the Iconoclasts encouraged the prevalent use of the motif of the cross without corpus), but it also had resonances with the floral trophy of Victory. Many fresco versions of the cross are thus still decorated with floral motifs. Blessing crosses in the Orthodox Church (used in almost every service by the priest and bishop to deliver blessings in the name of the crucified and Risen One) often have the corpus of the Lord on them, with the feet always nailed separately and distinctly (not as crossed over in the Latin tradition). The foot cross beam is a distinctive mark of the Orthodox Cross, thus making three cross beams (the titular notice board at the head of the cross, the main cross beam in the middle on which are the arms of the Lord, and the pedal cross beam). The latter is often drawn at a slant, and symbolically interpreted as tipped weighing scales: Christ as the “weigher of souls” and his cross as the balance beam that brings Justice to the world. In many representations of the cross (icons, frescoes, processional and hand crosses) one finds the added motifs of the sun and moon at the top (recalling the eclipse on Golgotha: Mt. 27.45) and a skull at the bottom of the main beam (signifying the pious tale that the hill of crucifixion was called the “place of the skull” because it was the reputed burial place of Adam). The theological point of this symbolism is, of course, that the death ofthe second Adam restores the ontological collapse of the First Adam: and indeed the icon of the resurrection (the Harrowing of Hades) demonstrates that point graphi­cally in the manner in which the Lord, in death, goes straight to Hades to lift Adam and Eve by hand out of the grave. The most remarkable instance of this iconography can be seen in the funerary chapel at the savior in Chora Church at Constantinople (Kariye Jamii).

Plate 14 Orthodox pilgrim in Jerusalem venerating the icon of the cross held by a monk. Darren Whiteside/Reuters/Corbis.

The cross features highly and predomi­nantly in Orthodox liturgy and spiritual life. It is the most common and popular form of prayer. Orthodox people “cross themselves” many times, both in private prayers and in public at the liturgy: not only at the recitation of every doxology, but at every significant moment in the course of their prayers. The divine liturgy is regularly interspersed with the priest or bishop emerging from the Royal Doors to offer blessings to the people with a hand cross, or with their own hands, making the sign of the cross over them. The sign of the cross is made in the Orthodox Church by the faithful with the first two fingers closed with the thumb (to signify the dou­ble nature of Christ, and the Trinity of Divine Persons) and touching the forehead while saying “In the Name of the Father,” touching the waist saying “And of the son,” touching the right shoulder while saying “And of the Holy spirit,” and then the left shoulder saying “Amen.” The Orthodox Church celebrates St. Helena (mother of Emperor Constantine) together with her son for instigating the mission that searched for and found the cross of Christ in 4th-century Jerusalem. The feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14) was merged with the earlier feast of the Finding of the Cross (the “Invention” of the Cross) after the 7th-century recapture of the relic taken from Jerusalem by the Persians. Since the time of St. Constantine the Great the relics of the wood of the True Cross have been highly prized above all other church relics; first in the churches of Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Rome, which treasured them, and from them outwards to the whole world.

The old mockery that all the relics of the True Cross put together would be enough to build a wooden ship was disproved in the 19th century by De Fleury, who mathematically estimated that all surviving fragments amount to less than one third of a typical Roman cross. Relics of the cross, wherever they are held in churches, are usually a central feature of the service of the veneration of the cross on Great Friday.

SEE ALSO: Iconoclasm; St. Constantine the Emperor (ca. 271–337); Soteriology

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

de Fleury, R. (1870) Memoire sur les instruments de la passion. Paris.

de Jerphanion, G. (1930) La Representation de la croix et du crucifix aux origines de I’art chretien. Paris.

Drijvers, J. W. (1991) Helena Augusta: The Mother of Constantine the Great and the Legend of Her Finding of the True Cross. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Frolow, A. (1961) “La Relique de la vraie croix: recherches sur la developpement d’une culte,” Archives de L’Orient 7.

Cyprus, Autocephalous Orthodox Church of

SERGEY TROSTYANSKIY

The Church of Cyprus has its origin in apostolic times. The Book of Acts tells us that Cyprus was evangelized by St. Barna­bas, who was a Cypriot from the city of Salamis. St. Barnabas is considered to be Cyprus’ first bishop. In 57 ce he was martyred by stoning for preaching Christ in a Cypriot synagogue. His body was hid­den by disciples, and local traditions tell of the manifestation of his relics four cen­turies later.

By the 4th century Christianity had made considerable headway on the island. Because of its geographical location, close to the city of Antioch, Cyprus was at first ecclesiastically administered from that patriarchate, up until the late 4th cen­tury when the Cypriots, defending the Nicene faith, made an attempt to disassoci­ate themselves from the Arian leadership in Antioch and gain autocephaly. The patriarchs of Antioch, in turn, attempted for some time to regain their jurisdictional control over Cyprus. The ecclesiastical dispute was discussed by the Council of Ephesus in 431. The Cypriot Church used that occasion to petition formally for its independence from Antioch. The Antio­chene Patriarch John objected, arguing that since the Arian crisis was no longer a common threat for Orthodoxy, the juris­dictional control of the patriarchate of Antioch over Cyprus should be reesta­blished. The synodical fathers, conscious ofJohn’s refusal to join the Ephesine assem­bly, took the side of the Church of Cyprus, approved its autocephalous status, and ordered the archbishops of Cyprus to be elected and consecrated henceforward by the synod of Cypriot bishops. In 488, however, the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch, Peter the Fuller, made another attempt to reclaim Antiochian jurisdiction over Cyprus, arguing that Cyprus had orig­inally been evangelized by the Antiochians. Even though they had scriptural attestation for the mission of St. Barnabas, it was said that the Cypriot Orthodox then had diffi­culties in making their case stand, until the miraculous rediscovery of the tomb of St. Barnabas resolved the controversy, by providing an essential witness to the church’s apostolic foundation. As a result of the manifestation of the relics of the apostle, a synod of the Constantinopolitan patriarchate confirmed the autocephaly of the Church of Cyprus and the Emperor

Zeno granted special privileges to arch­bishops of Cyprus (to wear special vesture and to use imperial purple ink). Since that time the venerable autocephaly of the Cypriot Church has been accepted by the entire Orthodox world.

Orthodoxy in Cyprus flourished for sev­eral centuries afterwards but, starting from the 7th century, the island experienced multiple invasions of Islamic Arabs. Towards the end of the 7th century Emperor Justinian II had to evacuate the Orthodox population of the island to the mainland of Asia Minor. Following this, Cyprus was devastated and Orthodox life diminished significantly. The local church leaders at that time assumed the responsi­bilities of ethnarchs, leaders of the local population both on a political as well as an ecclesiastical level. The 10th century eventually saw the liberation of Christian Cyprus as a consequence of the successful military campaign against the Arabs by the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas. Orthodoxy was soon revitalized and many churches and monasteries were founded on the island.

The end of the 12th century saw the con­quest of Cyprus by the Crusaders. The new French rulers of the island attempted to impose Latin ecclesiastical control over the Church of Cyprus. A Latin archbishop was appointed as head of the local bishops, and all monasteries were made subject to Latin bishops. Venetian rule over Cyprus that followed from the conquest of the island by Venice in 1489 continued the Latinization process. Nevertheless, despite all attempts made by the Latin rulers to change the religious ritual and allegiances of the Cypriots, they strongly defended their Orthodox identity and protected the Orthodox faith. The Turkish occupation of the island in the second half of the 16th century completely removed the Latin Church colonial dominion from Cyprus and gave the Orthodox the necessary breathing space to restore their hierarchy. However, the Church of Cyprus could not flourish much under the Turkish occupa­tion. Church hierarchs once again assumed the role of ethnarchs, providing civil and spiritual guidance for the Christian popula­tion of the island. The Greek Revolution of 1821 against the Ottomans resulted in severe persecution of the Cypriot bishops and priests who were suspected of being supportive to the revolutionaries. Many of them were murdered.

The beginning of British rule over the island in 1878 seemed promising for the Cypriots, as they hoped that their dream of union with Greece – cherished for cen­turies – was about to come true. However, the British authorities did not really wish to encourage the “Great Idea.” As a result, losing patience with British colonial rule, the Church of Cyprus, supported by the population of the island, organized the liberation movement which began in 1955. Archbishop Makarios III, Ethnarch of Cyprus, assumed leadership of the movement and finally became the first head of an independent Cyprus in 1960. The clash between the Greek and Turkish communities of Cyprus reached its peak in 1974, when invasion by the armed forces of Turkey immensely disturbed the eccle­siastical life of the church. The northern territories, occupied by Turks, suffered enormous losses, as many monasteries and churches were then destroyed or heavily damaged. To this day the situation has not been politically resolved. The Church of Cyprus has consistently denounced the division of the island and struggled for its reunification. In 2003 the Turkish administration of Northern Cyprus relaxed some of the restrictions of access and allowed Greek Cypriots to visit the monastic sites and churches in the North.

As of today the Church of Cyprus has 10 bishops, over 600 priests, 6 dioceses, 628 parishes, and about 650,000 members. The archbishop of Cyprus is known as His Beatitude. He himself is the archbishop of Constantia (Famagusta) and is resident at Nicosia. He has five suffragan eparchs. Together, they comprise the holy synod. The church has ten active monasteries, some dating back to Byzantine times. Among these monasteries the Kykko monastery in the Troodos Mountains is an important pilgrimage center of the Ortho­dox world. The monastery of St. Neophytos outside Paphos is another major Byzantine site. There are also a total of 67 other mon­asteries which are either currently unused or presently in ruins. The main seminary is that of the Apostle Barnabas in Nicosia. The church is renowned for sending out an abundant number of priests to serve in missionary capacities in other Orthodox communities overseas. There are also numerous Cypriots in the diaspora, espe­cially England. The Greek Cypriot Ortho­dox of Great Britain, however, belong to the oversight of the patriarch of Constantinople in the archdiocese of Thyateira, even though so many of the parishes there are composed entirely of Cypriot Orthodox, with clergy who are also chiefly Cypriot. For a small island, Cyprus’ contribution to the Orthodox world has been both remark­able and rich.

SEE ALSO: Antioch, Patriarchate of

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Englezakis, B. (1995) Studies on the History of the Church of Cyprus, 4th-20th Centuries. Aldershot: Variorum.

McGuckin, J. (2008) The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture. Oxford: Blackwell.

Mayes, S. (1981) Makarios: A Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Cyril Lukaris, Patriarch of Constantinople (1572–1638)

A. EDWARD SIECIENSKI

The so-called “Calvinist Patriarch” of Con­stantinople, Cyril Lukaris was among the most brilliant and influential Greek ecclesi­astics of the 17th century. Born in Crete in 1572, he was educated by the great scholar Maximos Margunios, bishop of Kythira (1549–1602). He completed his studies in Venice and later enrolled as a student at the University of Padua. Ordained as a deacon in 1593, in 1596 Lukaris partici­pated in the Constantinopolitan Synod that condemned the Union of Brest, traveling to Poland-Lithuania to communicate the synod’s decision to King Sigismund. From 1597 to 1602 he taught at Vilna and Lvov, where he was confronted with the success of Jesuit missionaries among the Orthodox. Lukaris’s experiences during these years convinced him of two things – that the Orthodox clergy needed to be better educated and that an Orthodox-Protestant alliance was the only possible recourse against Roman hegemony. In 1602 he succeeded his uncle Meletios as patriarch of Alexandria and in 1612 served as locum tenens of the ecumenical patriarchate. In 1620 he was elected patriarch of Constanti­nople, a post he would hold five times between 1620 and 1638 (1620–3, 1623–33, 1633–4, 1634–5, 1637–8). As patriarch, Lukaris actively worked to establish better relations with both the Calvinists and the Anglicans, even presenting King Charles I of England with an early Greek manuscript of the Bible (Codex Alexandrinus). In 1629, influenced in large part by the theology of

Antoine Leger, he affixed his name to a Confessio Fidei (which he also may have authored), an attempt to harmonize traditional Orthodox thought with Calvin­ist theology. This confession was later condemned at several Constantinopolitan Synods (1638, 1642), the Synod of Jassy (1642), and the Synod of Jerusalem (1672), in particular for its teachings on predestination, Eucharist, free will, and justification by faith. The other patriarchs, while reluctant to call Lukaris’s personal orthodoxy into question (unsure whether he authored it), pressed him to disavow the Confessio; something he never did.

His enemies, including Cyril Kontaris (later Patriarch Cyril II) and the Jesuits, frequently conspired together against him, allegedly offering the sultan money in exchange for Lukaris’s life. In 1638 he was accused of inciting the Cossacks against the Turks and executed by agents of Sultan Murad IV. His body was thrown into the Bosphorus, where it was washed ashore and secretly buried by his supporters. Only later, under Patriarch Parthenius, was he granted an honorable burial. Even today there remains debate as to Lukaris’s legacy – some seeing him as a staunch defender of Orthodoxy against the machinations of Rome, and others dismissing him as a crypto-Protestant whose teachings were rightly rejected by the church.

SEE ALSO: Anglicanism, Orthodoxy and; Eastern Catholic Churches; Ecumenism, Orthodoxy and; Iasi (Jassy), Synod of (1642)

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Calian, C. (1992) “Patriarch Lucaris’s Calvinistic

Confession,” in Theology Without Boundaries:

Encounters of Eastern Orthodoxy and Western

Tradition. Louisville: Westminister/John

Knox Press.

Hadjiantoniou, G. (1961) Protestant Patriarch: The Life of Cyril Lucaris. Richmond: John Knox Press. Schlier, R. (1927) Der Patriarch Kyrill Lukaris von Constantinopel. Marburg.